Scrapping School Sports funding will be disastrous for school sports. We use it to fund inter-school sports, extra swimming (we’re coastal)
This s will reduce opportunities for primary children. There is no money to cover this gap. Budgets already threadbare.
This is shocking. The response from Travelodge means I’ll not be using them when travelling in future.
How Travelodge in Maidenhead gave sex attacker key to woman's room - BBC News https://t.co/XQubBbReIG
What an insult to our country by this increasingly unhinged narcissist. I suspect most British people - even those who loathe Starmer - will find this statement extremely disrespectful. As I have said previously, the populist Right in Britain is making a big mistake by hitching its wagons to Trump and his unpopular war.
BREAKING: “We need to act with clarity, with purpose and with a cool head.. what I was not prepared to do on Saturday was for the UK to join a war unless I was satisfied there was a lawful basis and a viable thought through plan. That remains my position
Keir Starmer
#PMQs
It is odd how people with no experience of challenging schools, or of teaching at all, feel confident giving instructions to teachers. If you do not understand why schools have rules about equipment, uniforms, or leaving lessons, it may be wiser to stay silent.
Classroom teachers have to make 1000s of decisions a day. Some ppl are completely unaware of how many things a teacher has to remember to do on any given day, how many opportunities there are to get things right or wrong, how much stuff there is. It's hugely intense, requires complete commitment, hence why ppl get so tired. If you ain't done it, you won't know it.
The longer I've worked in education, the more apparent it's become: simple, consistent routines, applied with love, regular recognition & praise for getting it right &, when necessary, predictable consequences for not following the rules, has the greatest positive impact overall.
A message from a Kindergarten teacher:
After forty years in the classroom, my career ended with one small sentence from a six-year-old:
“My dad says people like you don’t matter anymore.”
No sneer. No malice. Just quiet honesty — the kind that cuts deeper because it’s innocent. He blinked, then added, “You don’t even have a TikTok.”
My name is Mrs. Clara Holt, and for four decades, I taught kindergarten in a small Denver suburb. Today, I stacked the last box on my desk and locked the door behind me.
When I started teaching in the early 1980s, it felt like a promise — a shared belief that what we did mattered. We weren’t rich, but we were valued. Parents brought warm cookies to parent nights. Kids gave you handmade cards with hearts that didn’t quite line up. Watching a child sound out their first sentence felt like magic.
But that world slowly slipped away. The job I once knew has been replaced by exhaustion, red tape, and a kind of loneliness I can’t quite describe.
My evenings used to be filled with construction paper, glitter, and glue sticks. Now they’re spent filling out digital reports to protect myself from angry emails or lawsuits. I’ve been yelled at by parents in front of twenty-five children — one filming me with his phone while I tried to calm another child mid-meltdown.
And the kids… they’ve changed too. Not by choice.
They arrive tired, anxious, overstimulated. Their tiny fingers know how to swipe a screen before they can hold a crayon. Some can’t make eye contact or wait in line. We’re expected to fix all of it — to patch the gaps, heal the trauma, teach the curriculum, and document every move — in six hours a day, with resources that barely fill a drawer.
The little reading corner I once built, full of soft beanbags and paper stars, was replaced by data charts and “learning metrics.” A young principal once told me, “Clara, maybe you’re too nurturing. The district wants measurable results.”
As if kindness were a weakness.
Still, I stayed. Because of the small, holy moments that no spreadsheet could measure —
a whisper of, “You remind me of my grandma.”
a shaky note that read, “I feel safe here.”
a quiet boy finally meeting my eyes and saying, “I read the whole page.”
Those tiny sparks were my reason to keep showing up.
But this last year broke something in me.
The aggression grew sharper. The laughter in the staff room turned to silence. The light went out of so many eyes. I watched brilliant teachers — my friends — vanish under the weight of burnout, their joy replaced by survival.
I felt myself fading too, like chalk on a board that’s been wiped one too many times.
So today, I began my goodbye. I pulled faded art off the walls and tucked thirty years of handmade cards into a single box. In the back of a drawer, I found a letter from a student from 1998:
“Thank you for loving me when I was hard to love.”
I sat on the floor and cried.
No party. No applause. Just a handshake from a young principal who called me “Ma’am” while checking his notifications.
I left my rocking chair behind, and my sticker box too. What I carried with me were the memories — the faces of hundreds of children who once trusted me enough to reach out their hands and learn. That can’t be uploaded. It can’t be measured. It can’t be replaced.
I miss when teachers were partners, not targets. When parents and educators worked side by side, not in opposition. When schools cared more about wonder than numbers.
So if you know a teacher — any teacher — thank them. Not with a mug or a gift card, but with your words. With your respect. With your understanding that behind every test score is a heart that cared enough to try.
Because in a world that often overlooks them, teachers are the ones who never forget our children.
@Keir_Starmer This week staff have been bitten, hit, and sworn at. Concentrate on teacher retention and send! That way you won’t have to offer bursaries because teachers will stay!
@BladeoftheS He’s reported to have hissed at Jewish pupils whilst at school, simulating gas being released in a gas chamber. His teachers at Dulwich College thought he was racist and fascist and he sung Hitler youth songs whilst being a cadet at the school.
I’d say that qualifies him.
When David Lammy says Nigel Farage flirted with Hitler Youth, he’s referring to the fact that teachers from his school described him as a Fascist and recalled how he marched through a Sussex village singing Hitler Youth songs. Sounds pretty flirty to me.